Looking for Me

by Beth Hoffman

  She rocked back and forth, jabbering away. I suspected it was her way of dealing with such deep disappointment. The minutes ticked on, and when she wound down on sharing what she’d done in my absence, she let out a sigh. “Anyway, that’s about all I know, or at least all I remember.” She looked down and smoothed her fingers along the arms of the chair. “So . . . Frances decided not to come.”

  It was not a question.

  Please help me. How do I tell her?

  I scooted the chair closer and covered her hands with mine. “Her bags were all packed. She wanted to be here, she really did. But she . . . she took a bad turn. There was nothing the doctors could do.”

  Grammy’s face blanched, and I felt a tremor move through her fingers. “Oh, no. Oh, dear Lord. She’s gone?”

  I nodded.

  The focus of her eyes drifted past me to the window, to a secret place known only to her. She resumed rocking. The slow, rhythmic creaking of her chair was the only sound in the room. A tear escaped my grandmother’s eye, caught itself in a wrinkle, and slid into the corner of her mouth. She did not look at me when she asked, “Was it her heart?”

  “A stroke.”

  “Were you with her when she passed?”

  “No. But Stella was, and I’m grateful for that. Grammy, I hope you’ll forgive me, but I couldn’t tell you over the phone. I just couldn’t. And then I thought—”

  “Nothing to forgive, honey.”

  “I’m still so confused. Mama seemed fine the night before she passed away. I sat on the edge of her bed, and we talked for quite a while. I fluffed up her hair and even put some blush on her cheeks.”

  A sad smile crept to my grandmother’s lips when she looked at me. “That was a sweet thing you did, Teddi. Got her dolled up for the big trip.”

  I traced my finger along a thick blue vein in her hand and lowered my head.

  Grammy’s bottom lip trembled when she said, “It’s no secret we had our differences, but I loved Frances. Loved her very much.” Her voice broke apart when she added, “We’re not supposed to outlive our children. It goes against nature’s plan of things.”

  I watched my grandmother’s inner light fade as she lowered her eyes and began smoothing a wrinkle in her yellow duster.

  “Right before I left her room, I hugged Mama and said good-bye. I don’t know why, but when I reached the doorway, I stopped and turned around. And you know what, Grammy? She was looking at me. I mean more than looking at me. It was like she was studying me. So I blew her a kiss across the room.” I swallowed against the thickness in my throat when I added, “And she blew one back to me.”

  “My Aunt Lil used to say that right before passing, a person sees with clear eyes. You’re a good girl. I hope Frances finally saw that.”

  Another tear slid down my grandmother’s cheek, and I reached over and wiped it away. Then, in perfectly choreographed unison, we turned and looked out the window at the garden. But my eyes lost focus, and soon the flowers became nothing but a watercolor blur.

  When I looked at my grandmother, she had either fallen asleep or was so deep in thought that I wondered if maybe she wanted a little time alone. I closed the window blinds against the morning sun and went in search of a strong cup of coffee.

  SIXTEEN

  For the next few weeks, I trudged through each day at work. The teasing and laughter between Albert and Inez had diminished. I’m sure they didn’t know what to say or do. And what was there to do? Nothing. That’s the thing with death: There’s no making it better, and that’s what we did at my shop. We were the fixers and the healers—the go-to people who could take even the most damaged piece of furniture and find a way to bring it back to life.

  So, piece by damaged piece, that’s what we did. As we went about our work, I took to my restoration and custom-painting projects with a sense of purpose I hadn’t experienced in years. I welcomed the smell of oil paints, stains, and turpentine, and I was grateful for the concentration my work demanded. I painted details on a shield-back chair with a brush so tiny its bristles were all but invisible, and I plotted a fleur-de-lis pattern along the edge of a tabletop with a surgeon’s precision. When it came to my work, grief had not pulled me into its wreckage. Oddly, it had enhanced it.

  Then one morning as I was dusting a lamp shade, the bell above the door rang and Miz Poteet walked in. I had thought that after being caught red-handed with the candlestick in her handbag she’d decided to do her sticky-fingered shopping elsewhere. But there she was, as if nothing had ever happened. I was in no mood to deal with her, so I quickly walked away and asked Inez to keep an eye on things until she left.

  While Inez scurried out of her office, I went to see Albert. We talked quietly as I waited for Miz Poteet to leave. Thankfully, it was only a few minutes before Inez walked into the workroom with a satisfied smile. “Mission accomplished. I made damn sure she didn’t steal anything. But she asked me to give you these.” Inez handed me an envelope and a small gift-wrapped box.

  I opened the envelope and was momentarily speechless. It was a Christmas card with an angel on the cover. Printed inside were the words JOYOUS GREETINGS. When I read what Miz Poteet had written at the bottom, I shook my head. “What on earth?”

  Inez lifted her glasses from the chain around her neck and perched them on her nose. “Let me see.” Her eyes grew wide as she read the card aloud. “‘I’m so sorry about the passing of your mother. Now she’s an angel watching over you. Was she baptized? Sincerely, Tula Jane Poteet.’”

  Albert looked over Inez’s shoulder and scrunched up his face. “Baptized? That’s a whole lotta strange, right there.”

  I peeled the wrapping from the box and lifted the lid. When I saw what was inside, I couldn’t believe it. It was the Limoges box that Miz Poteet had stolen from me earlier in the year. The absurdity of it caught me off guard, and I burst into laughter and looked at Inez. “Guess you’d better credit her son’s account.”

  “Not on your life! This proves it—she’s a nutcase.”

  Inez and Albert began to laugh, and in that lovely, unexpected moment, my grief gave way and the three of us howled, just like old times. We were still laughing when the bell above the door sounded.

  “I’ll get it,” I said, taking a moment to pull myself together before walking down the hallway. I was surprised to see Olivia.

  “Teddi, there’s a big yard sale over on Church Street. The sign says it opens at eleven o’clock. No early birds. It looked like they had a ton of books and glassware. Plus, there was quite a bit of furniture. So can you go with me?”

  “I’d love to, but I’d better check the finances. C’mon back.”

  As we walked through the shop, Olivia came to a halt when she saw my newest acquisition. Crafted of satinwood, the Edwardian wardrobe was a behemoth that stood nine feet tall. Olivia opened the carved double doors and peered inside. “Whoa, are we going to Narnia?”

  “Maybe later,” I said, grabbing the sleeve of her blouse and tugging her along. I stopped at the doorway to Inez’s office. “How are accounts receivable?”

  “This is a good month, but we’ve got rent coming up, and that shipment of sterling from England will be here any day. If I remember right, it’s COD.” Rising from the chair, Inez gave Olivia a friendly swat on her rump as she walked to the file cabinet. “I’ll make a photocopy of the financial sheet.”

  As Olivia and I headed down the hall, she whispered, “You sure lucked out when you found Inez. I love that woman.”

  Inez called out, “I love you, too, Olivia.”

  “I swear, Inez has eyes in the back of her head and hears better than an owl.”

  “I had to,” Inez called out again. “I raised four children.”

  Olivia followed me into the workroom, where Albert was mixing a jar of custom-tinted stain.

  “Hey, Albert. How about taking a break?”


  He eyed us suspiciously. “What kind of break you talkin’ about?”

  “A yard sale over on Church Street. Olivia says they have a ton of stuff. Maybe we’ll find a few treasures. Want to go?”

  “Well, I guess so. But I’m tellin’ you right now, I ain’t lifting anything heavy. About broke my back with that bookcase you two fools brought back from Atlanta.”

  Inez came up behind us and handed me the financial sheet, then turned and left. I scanned the columns. “I’m in good shape, but I can’t go overboard. Let’s see what we can find.”

  Albert pulled off his apron, and the three of us climbed into Olivia’s truck while Inez minded the shop.

  And what a sale it was. Every inch of the front yard was packed with furniture, paintings, and housewares. Row after row of long folding tables awaited our inspection, each one smothered with everything from fine crystal bowls to sterling flatware to goofy tchotchkes. Olivia made a beeline for the book table, while Albert and I headed in the opposite direction.

  “Hard to see what all’s here,” he said, squeezing behind a sofa and nearly knocking over a lamp.

  Within minutes Albert found a fishing creel and I found a pair of opera glasses and a large, filigreed serving spoon that was as gorgeous as its intended use was puzzling. As I marveled at how unusual it was, a well-dressed elderly woman walked by and said, “Goodness, you don’t see those very often.”

  “Do you know what it was originally used for?” I asked.

  “It’s a bonbon server.” Then she smiled and moved toward a table filled with crystal stemware.

  “There’s more around back,” a young woman called from the porch.

  Albert and I walked along the side of the house and entered the backyard. I pointed to a table loaded with kitchenware and whispered, “So now I finally know. This is where old Tupperware comes to die.”

  Albert laughed and stepped over a garden hose.

  Lined up along a border garden were boxes that overflowed with everything from leather belts to sweaters. I reached into a shoe box filled with old costume jewelry and picked up a strand of royal blue glass beads. Several were cracked, and three were broken. While rolling a bead between my thumb and forefinger, I wondered where all the damage came from. Had the necklace been thrown against a wall in a heated lovers’ quarrel or perhaps given to a child to play with and run over by a bicycle in the driveway?

  Old things held so many untold stories.

  As much as I loved these kinds of sales, beneath the surface they were somber affairs—people picking through the belongings of the dead, or those soon to be. Rarely did I feel indifference when I touched the private items of perfect strangers.

  On the back porch was a coatrack crammed with party dresses, overcoats, and jackets with poker-chip buttons. When it came to house sales, the old clothes were always the saddest—how limply they hung, moving in the breeze like tired ghosts.

  Removing a red-and-white-checked dress from its hanger, I held it up to my shoulders. “This must be from the early forties. What do you think, Albert?”

  He shook his head. “I know better’n to comment on a woman’s clothes, except to say it’s real pretty and, no, it don’t make your butt look too big.”

  I laughed. “C’mon, tell me the truth. What do you honestly think?”

  “Well, it kinda looks like it was made from a tablecloth.”

  I stared down at the dress and frowned. “I think you’re right.” I returned it to the rack and stepped off the porch.

  That’s when I saw it.

  Before it had fallen into the wrong hands, before countless assaults had left it scraped and gouged, and long before forgotten cigarettes had burned its edges until they’d blackened like an overdone piecrust, it had once been beautiful. Even now the old chest sat in a sunny spot of lawn with a pride that was unmistakable.

  “Oh, my gosh. This is mid-eighteenth-century Dutch,” I whispered to Albert while kneeling to examine the drawer pulls. With my thumbnail I scratched away at the grimy film until I could see what lay beneath. I smiled up at Albert. “Ormolu.”

  “Now, Teddi, whatchu thinkin’? You know that chest is all whompyjawed. It’s too far gone, and it’s—”

  “Walnut,” I said, smoothing my fingertips over the top.

  “Yeah. It’s walnut all right, but that chest might as well be plywood ’cause it ain’t worth much. See how all that marquetry’s poppin’ off? Now, you know that’s a bad sign. And look how warped this side is.”

  I tried to open the top drawer, but it was stuck. The same was true of the next drawer, and the next.

  “Them drawers won’t open neither.”

  “Yes, I see that,” I said with a chuckle. “I know this chest needs a ton of work, but—”

  “That chest don’t need work, it needs a miracle. And Albert James Pickens ain’t the one to do it. Jesus hisself couldn’t fix that old chest.”

  We stood in a slant of sun and stared at each other.

  “I can rework the cigarette burns and do all the refinishing, but I don’t have the skill to bring this old chest back to life. You do marquetry replacement better than anyone on the planet. And I’ve seen you do steam bends that defy explanation. Please say yes, Albert. I love this chest. It’s like an old friend.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Then you’d best be findin’ a different friend. What about that piece over there?” he said, pointing to a mahogany bench. “Now, that I can fix.”

  I dismissed the bench with a wave of my hand. “I don’t want this chest to sell in the shop. I want it for me. Please help me with it, Albert. I’m in love with it, and I can’t even tell you why. I just am.”

  “I got no time for this chest. All them extra hours I ordered ain’t arrived yet.”

  I smiled. “I don’t care if you can’t get to it for a year.”

  He let out a grunt. “I’m tellin’ you, this chest is in sad, sorry shape. But you got that look in your eyes, so I guess there’s no sense in arguin’. Let’s haul it on back to the shop.”

  While Albert and I hoisted the chest into the bed of the truck, Olivia showed up with a box of books in her arms. Behind her, one of the yard sale helpers was holding an old croquet mallet and a cuckoo clock. Olivia’s face was flushed.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  She flashed me a look that telegraphed, Don’t ask, and I clamped my mouth shut.

  We climbed into the truck, and when Olivia pulled away from the curb, she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Holy shit on a stick of dynamite! Whoever priced the books didn’t have a clue. I bought Winston Churchill’s Arms and the Covenant. It’s a first edition. And it’s in pristine condition. My head’s going to pop off!”

  “What’d you pay for it?” I asked.

  “Two lousy dollars!”

  Albert rested his arm on the open window and chuckled. “Well, Teddi bought a chest that ain’t even worth two dollars, but she up and paid twenty.”

  I lifted my chin. “Just wait. You’ll see.”

  Olivia whipped the truck around a corner. “Maybe I’ll go buy a yacht and we’ll all go fishing. What do you think, Albert?”

  “A yacht?” he said with a laugh. “How much you think that book’s worth?”

  “I’d say easily five grand.”

  Albert’s voice shot up several octaves. “For a bunch of paper with words printed on ’em! Now, that right there is crazy. I bought my whole house for nine thousand, and it’s got a kitchen and a bathroom.”

  “Yeah, but how long ago was that?” Olivia said.

  “Don’t make no difference when it was. All you got is a dusty old book, and I got a whole house!”

  Olivia and I laughed. Albert sure knew how to boil things down to the bone truth.

  After we’d unloaded my yard sale finds and hauled the chest into the workroom, Oli
via all but danced out of the shop and headed home to start calling book collectors.

  It was just before closing time when I checked to see how Albert was progressing with a difficult repair he’d been working on. “Miz Osgood’s chair is done,” he said, wiping his hands on a rag.

  “Thanks, Albert.”

  He hung up his apron and grabbed his cap. “See you tomorrow.”

  I ended the day sitting at my desk and signing checks for Inez. On my way out the door, I walked into the workroom and turned on the lights. From my workbench I lifted a magnifying glass and examined the old walnut chest I’d bought at the yard sale. The marquetry, or at least what was left of it, was stunning.

  Now and then it would happen, I’d touch an antique and feel a strange connection with the person who made it. My fingers would grasp the knobs as theirs once did, and a kind of alchemy occurred. Though nearly impossible to explain, it was as real as my own breathing.

  “Somebody loved you, didn’t they? Well, don’t worry. I know you’re in trouble, but we’ll get you fixed up. I already know where you’ll go. Right next to my bed.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Though I wanted to dive right in and begin working on that old chest, I couldn’t. I had a job to do in Kentucky before winter set in. After speaking with Inez and Albert about running the shop in my absence, I blocked out ten days on my calendar. It wasn’t but a few hours after I’d finalized the plans for my trip up north that Olivia phoned all excited. “There’s an estate sale in Atlanta on Sunday,” she said. “It’s slated to be a big one. I’m talking the entire contents of a thirty-room mansion. Want to go?”

  “I wish I could, but I’ve rented a van and I’m leaving for Kentucky on Thursday morning.”

  She didn’t skip a beat when she said, “Road trip? Count me in.”

  “This isn’t for a long weekend, Olivia. I’ll probably be there for nine or ten days. Maybe you can come another time. There’s so much to do, and—”